Matiang'i: Curriculum will be more diverse

The Government plans to create a curriculum that will identify and nurture children’s abilities and talents.

Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Fred Matiang’i says the curriculum will have academic, vocational and talent pathways, besides academic programmes.

He said the current curriculum is overly academic and it undermines the abilities and inclinations many students have in talent-based and vocational fields.

A task force, appointed by former Education Minister Sam Ongeri in January 2011, to realign the education sector to Vision 2030 and the new Constitution recommended that the curriculum be revised to ensure learners acquired competencies and skills that would enable them meet the human resource aspirations of Vision 2030 by offering a choice of subject pathways at the end of the elementary school phase.

This was meant to ensure the attainment of an 100 per cent transition rate from primary to secondary school, thereby reducing wastage by introducing automatic progression to the junior secondary phase based on the acquisition of core skills and competences (literacy, numeracy and communication skills).

Disciplinary action

The revised structure was supposed to focus on early identification and nurturing of talent in individual learners, allow for specialisation at the end of junior secondary and introduce a system of competence assessment tests (CATS) to measure knowledge, skills and competences.

Mr Matiang’i, speaking at Advent Hill Primary School in Kajiado, asked school heads to stop remitting money to the Kenya National Parents Association. He said the association did not have the mandate to impose charges on schools. He said he would take disciplinary action against any head teacher who gave money to the association. He also pledged to ensure that schools were properly supervised.